Val from WEKA joins Michael Smith Jr. and Raz Kotler, two days after the US midterms, to discuss why the world needs twice the tokens its power supply can generate, why AI inference is wasting most of its compute, and what the Binance hack says about defending at machine speed.

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Val explains why falling inference costs haven't slowed demand: agents keep getting more elaborate, so token consumption keeps exploding. He breaks down KV cache engineering, the agent swarm architecture behind consumer agents like Meta's Muse and Instinct, and why redundant prefill is one of the original sins of inference. He also covers DeepSeek's DeepInfer release and the shift from peer-to-peer prefill/decode toward a publish-subscribe memory pool. The conversation moves from the data center backlash after the midterms to why open models run about six months behind the frontier, and what that gap means for cybersecurity heading into 2027.

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The discussion also covers why the labs behind frontier models treat efficiency as an afterthought, why Anthropic paid a premium for compute while DeepSeek had to engineer around export controls, and why Val thinks the closed labs lose the medium term. He and Raz debate whether CrowdStrike and Palo Alto must now understand inference economics to deliver real managed security, and why ambitious agents, not nation-states, may become the defining threat. Val closes with quantum error correction and his forecast for a wave of uncensored open models.

🔥 Watch Our Other Videos:

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDqX49du3mY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFNU_Sbsvyo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snct0XjAavo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=209V_xEBViM

🔔 Listen and Subscribe

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheGeneralistsPodcast•

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2apfGY403NGr1EyTNkJfG4

• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-generalists/id1756861150

👤👤 Hosts

• Michael Smith Jr.: https://www.linkedin.com/in/smittysgp/

• Raz Kotler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/razkotler/

👤 Guest

• Val, WEKA: https://www.linkedin.com/in/valentinbercovici/

🔗 Resources

• WEKA: https://www.weka.io/

• DeepSeek: https://www.deepseek.com/

• Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co/

• Reflection AI: https://reflection.ai/

• The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/innovators-dilemma/clayton-m-christensen/1100196911

#DeepSeek #AIAgents #BinanceHack

Amir Boldo, co-founder and Chief Product & Technology Officer of Above Security, joins Michael Smith Jr. and Raz Kotler to discuss why AI agents are creating a new category of insider risk, how cybersecurity startups are changing in the AI era, and why he returned to cybersecurity after building companies in networking infrastructure and fintech.

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Amir explains how Above Security uses AI agents to monitor the behavior of both employees and autonomous AI systems, giving security teams greater visibility into actions that could put company data and systems at risk. As organizations give AI agents more permissions and access, traditional insider threats are becoming harder to manage. The conversation explores why Amir believes this wave of AI is fundamentally different from previous technology shifts, why cybersecurity companies increasingly need AI to defend against AI, and how his experience at Zerto, DriveNets, Silverfort and Trullion shaped his approach to building Above.

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The discussion also gets into Israel's advantages in cybersecurity, from its military technology talent and specialist venture funds to the networks that help founders reach US customers. Amir shares why building a startup today can require dramatically fewer people, how AI is changing product development and customer expectations, and what he learned about choosing the right co-founder after building his previous company. They also debate founder work culture, five-day office schedules, the difference between early employees and later hires, and why company values mean little unless founders actually live by them. Amir closes with his advice on ambition, learning, listening and the books that have shaped his approach to entrepreneurship.

🔥 Watch Our Other Videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fHGsMZv9ZM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDqX49du3mY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFNU_Sbsvyo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snct0XjAavo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=209V_xEBViM

🔔 Listen and Subscribe

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheGeneralistsPodcast

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2apfGY403NGr1EyTNkJfG4

• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-generalists/id1756861150

👤👤 Hosts

• Michael Smith Jr.: https://www.linkedin.com/in/smittysgp/

• Raz Kotler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/razkotler/

👤 Guest

• Amir Boldo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirboldo/

🔗 Resources

• Above Security: https://www.above.security/

• Above Security Insider Risk Platform: https://www.above.security/insider-risk-management

• Above Security Blog: https://www.above.security/blog

• Trullion: https://trullion.com/

• Silverfort: https://www.silverfort.com/

• DriveNets: https://drivenets.com/

• Zerto: https://www.zerto.com/

• Merlin Ventures: https://www.merlin.vc/

• Norwest: https://www.nvp.com/

• Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co/

• Claude Code: https://www.anthropic.com/claude-code

• Model Context Protocol (MCP): https://modelcontextprotocol.io/

• Decart: https://www.decart.ai/• Bringg: https://www.bringg.com/

• What You Do Is Who You Are by Ben Horowitz: https://a16z.com/books/what-you-do-is-who-you-are/

• The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz: https://a16z.com/books/the-hard-thing-about-hard-things/

• Confessions of a Unicorn Founder by Ra'anan Cohen: https://www.raanancohen.com/

#Cybersecurity #AIAgents #StartupFounders

Siddhartha “Sid” Ahluwalia, co-founder and Managing Partner of Neon Fund and host of The Neon Show, joins Michael Smith Jr. and Raz Kotler to explain how a podcast that started with a $100 Samsung phone became part of the operating system for a venture fund. Sid shares how he and Nansi Mishra went from podcasting and small SPVs to raising multiple funds, building a portfolio of around 70 companies, and now raising Neon Fund IV.

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Sid explains why media is much more than marketing for Neon. The podcast gives the fund access to founders, operators and LPs, while Neon turns that network into customer introductions, deal flow and distribution for its portfolio. He breaks down why the fund targets second-time founders before they even have an idea, why Neon increasingly focuses on companies building for the US market, and how a $300,000 early investment returned $2.1 million and helped shape the fund’s approach to investing.

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The conversation also gets into India’s changing startup and exit ecosystem, why Sid believes great founders create their own “surface area for luck,” and why Neon would be materially weaker without its podcast. Sid shares the economics behind spending heavily on content without trying to monetize it, his ambition to build a $100 billion combined portfolio, why Neon hires operators rather than traditional VCs, and how AI may change the classic startup founding team by allowing deeply technical founders to reach product-market fit before hiring a traditional GTM leader. He also talks candidly about extreme drive, learning from his father’s repeated business failures, Vipassana meditation, and why even successful creators still struggle with the numbers.

🔥 Watch Our Other Videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fHGsMZv9ZM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDqX49du3mY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFNU_Sbsvyo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snct0XjAavo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=209V_xEBViM

🔔 Listen and Subscribe

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheGeneralistsPodcast

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2apfGY403NGr1EyTNkJfG4

• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-generalists/id1756861150

👤👤 Hosts

• Michael Smith Jr.: https://www.linkedin.com/in/smittysgp/

• Raz Kotler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/razkotler/

👤 Guest

• Siddhartha Ahluwalia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/

🔗 Resources

• Neon Fund: https://neon.fund/

• Neon Portfolio: https://neon.fund/investments/

• The Neon Show: https://neon.fund/podcasts/

• Zencastr: https://zencastr.com/

• AWS: https://aws.amazon.com/

• SHEROES: https://sheroes.com/

• Flipkart: https://www.flipkart.com/

• Walmart: https://www.walmart.com/

• Zomato: https://www.zomato.com/

• Ather Energy: https://www.atherenergy.com/

• Blinkit: https://blinkit.com/

• eBikeGo: https://ebikego.com/

• Atomicwork: https://www.atomicwork.com/

• MantisGrid AI: https://mantisgrid.ai/

• Zenduty: https://www.zenduty.com/

• Cyberstarts: https://www.cyberstarts.com/

• SagePilot: https://sagepilot.ai/

• OpenRouter: https://openrouter.ai/

• Ritholtz Wealth Management: https://ritholtzwealth.com/

• Vipassana Meditation: https://www.dhamma.org/

#VentureCapital #StartupInvesting #TheNeonShow